Washington Post was forced into finally revealing drone base secret

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/06/washington-post-drones

Version 0 of 1.

Newspaper editors are always conscious of the need to balance the public's right to know with the requirements of national security. And, most often, they oblige governments by acceding to requests not to publish sensitive information that might jeopardise operations.

But self-censorship, despite a sensible public interest justification, is increasingly difficult to attain in a competitive digital media world, as the Washington Post can testify.

For more than a year, the paper refrained from disclosing the location of a secret US military base in Saudi Arabia from which CIA drones were launched.

It did so at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that exposing the facility would undermine operations against al-Qaida in Yemen and might potentially damage counter-terrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

But the Post learned on Tuesday night that another news outlet was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organisations that had been aware of the location.

So the paper decided it was no longer feasible to keep the secret and published the information. Its story was followed up by Fox News here.

However, it appears that the location of several drone bases was published as long ago as September last year on at least one news website, as this item on the North America Inter Press Service illustrates.

The Post's publication of the location occurred at a sensitive time for President Obama, who wishes to install John Brennan, his counter-terrorism adviser, as director of the CIA.

That proposed appointment has opened Obama's administration to scrutiny over its use of drones to target al-Qaida terrorists and, more controversially, strikes against US citizens abroad.

This policy has emerged as a potential source of opposition to Brennan, who faces a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday.

According to the Post's story, the secrecy was punctured with the leak of a justice department document that spells out the case for killing US citizens accused of being al-Qaida operatives. It is possible that the revelation will delay, if not derail, Brennan's confirmation in his new post.

The only strike intentionally targeting a US citizen occurred in 2011 in an attack that killed al-Qaida operative Anwar al-Awlaki, and was carried out in part by CIA drones flown from the previously secret base in Saudi Arabia.

The Post was able to reveal that the base was established two years ago to intensify the war against al-Qaida. And it was Brennan who played a key role in negotiations with Saudi Arabia over locating the base inside the country.